Van Wagenen
Homestead/Apple Tree House298 Academy Street

National Register of Historic Places
New Jersey Register of Historic Places

Artist's rendering of the Cider Press operations behind the Van Wagenen
House
Courtesy, Jersey City Free Public Library

Apple Tree House
c.1940Courtesy, Jersey
City Free Public Library

Apple
Tree HousePhoto: A. Selvaggio,
2002

One
of Jersey City's oldest and most historic houses is the well-known Van
Wagenen/Apple Tree House. It has particular historical significance from
its location, longevity, architectural development and the long-standing,
but unproven legend, of a meeting between General George Washington and
Major General Marquis de Lafayette under an apple tree during the American
Revolutionary War. The landmark house that receives so much attention
today was built in two sections and spans four different phases of construction.

The site
of the house dates back to the seventeenth-century Dutch settlement of
the village of Bergen, near present-day Bergen Avenue and south of Journal
Square. It was conveyed to Gerrit Gerritsen by the English Governor Philip
Carteret of colonial New Jersey in 1688. Carteret had agreed to honor
the earlier land grants of the Dutch in the colony as well as the charter
of Bergen.

Family
History

Gerritsen
arrived in New Netherland in 1659/1660. He settled in the village of Communipaw,
where he seems to have lived until his death, which according to records
of the Reformed Protestant
Dutch Church of Bergen was in 1703. Gerritsen changed his surname
to Van Wagenen; it reflected the name of his hometown Wagening in Holland
and began the legacy of one of the first Dutch families who settled in
the area.

In 1688,
Gerritsen purchased plots in the village
of Bergen in 1688. One of them was Lot 113 on which the Van Wagenen
House was eventually constructed. It is described in the Van Wagenen House
preservation plan by Holt Morgan Russell Architects (HMR) as “A
narrow rectangular plot located in the middle of the block on what is
now Academy Street and extending to the center of the northwest quadrant
. . . . “ (11-1).

The Gerritsen
property passed to his son Johannis Van Wagenen. Although there are conflicting
accounts about the inheritance of the property at the turn of the eighteenth
century, it is held that family members were living at Bergen by 1721
and that Johannis Van Wagenen, a grandson of the first Johannis, owned
the property from 1759 (HMR 111-8). Jacob Van Wagenen (d. 1839), oldest
son of Johannis, inherited the property; he willed the house to his son
Hartman Van Wagenen in 1835. Hartman Van Wagenen (1790-1877) was a New
Jersey Assemblyman, County Freeholder, and Clerk of the Board of Freeholders.

The Van Wagenen
family members were active in the Reformed Dutch Church of Bergen. Their
descendents were buried at the nearby Old
Bergen Cemetery. In his will, Hartman Van Wagenen bestowed pew number
54 to his son Henry (1823-1900) as part of his inheritance. The executors
of Henry’s estate sold the Academy Street property to his daughter
Eliza Jane Cokelet in 1900. She lived there until her death in 1943 after
which her grandson William Van Wagenen Cokelet inherited the house. When
the house was sold in 1947, it marked 259 years of ownership of the property
by the Van Wagenen-Cokelet family.

The last
private owners of the house were Lawrence G. Quinn, a funeral director,
and his wife Mary, who purchased the property for Quinn’s Funeral
Parlor. In 1995, the Quinns bestowed the house to the Provident Savings
Bank who, in 1999, sold it to Jersey City for preservation as a historic
museum and education center. The present-day preservation project is to
restore the house to its appearance during the 1839-1879 period. Support
for the restoration project has come from the Urban Enterprise Zone, Hudson
County Open Space Fund and New Jersey Historic Trust.

Building
a Legend on Lot 113

According
to the HMR study, “Whether built by Johannis, son of Gerrit Gerritsen,
or under the tenure of Johannis’s son, Johannis, map research confirms
that there was a house on Lot 113, the present location of the Van Wagenen
House, by 1778 . . .” (III-13). The original building (western section)
was a one-story, one-room deep farmhouse built of locally cut ashlar sandstone,
with an upper gable end of wood. There was a cider press on the property
and apple tree orchards nearby.

During the
Revolutionary War, the location of the house on the heights across the
Hudson River from the Loyalist stronghold of New York presented an opportunity
for its use as the headquarters of Lafayette. Close by was the “point
of rocks” that overlooked the river near the east end of Academy
Street and provided an ideal vantage point for military reconnaissance.

Hartman Van
Wagenen added the adjacent (eastern) section to the house ca. 1842. It
was a two-and-one half story, eight-room building of ashlar sandstone
and brick in Greek Revival style, popular during the early nineteenth
century. Keeping with tradition, a gable roof of wood, typical of Dutch-style
construction was chosen. Exterior features of the addition include a three-bay
front, six-over-six windows and paneled shutters.

According
to the DMR report, Hartman oversaw another addition, ca. 1860, to the
western section of the house: “A brick second story and rear room
was added, converting the one room deep, one story wing to a two story,
two room deep section” (III-16). It also introduced the popular
Italianate style of the time, as evidenced by bracketed cornices, in this
phase of construction.

After the
1947 purchase of the property, the Quinn family made extensive renovations
to the exterior and interior of the historic house for use as a funeral
home, which included modern heating and air conditioning. It is claimed
that Mary Quinn aimed to redecorate the interior in a style inspired by
the décor of Colonial Williamsburg.Tracing the Legend

The often-repeated
legend about the “Apple Tree House” is that General Washington
and General Lafayette met there under an apple tree on the front yard
to discuss war strategy where they shared a meal. The legend developed
from varying accounts of the event over a span of time between the event
and an interest by historians to reclaim the story.

We do know
from their correspondence that both Washington and Lafayette were in Bergen
between August 24-to-26, 1780. The purpose of their presence in Bergen
was twofold: to goad the British into attacking Bergen from their stronghold
in New York and to resolve the issue of supplies, called foraging, for
the troops. While Washington and Lafayette similarly record the days’
events in their letters, absent is any reference to a meal enjoyed under
an apple tree.

The Newark
Sentinel first made mention of the legendary gastronomy on the occasion
of Lafayette’s return to the United States for extended July 4th
celebrations in 1824. On September 23, accompanied by New Jersey Governor
Isaac H. Williamson, Lafayette reportedly entered Jersey City in a carriage
drawn by four horses. He joined a parade to the Bergen Hotel at Five Corners,
the center of the community, for the festivities.

The newspaper
records that the Dominie John Cornelisen, pastor of the Dutch Reformed
Church, presented Lafayette with a walking cane. It was made from the
acclaimed apple tree that was felled during a storm on September 3, 1821.
The cane is now on display at the Louvre Museum in Paris and bares the
inscription: "Shaded the Hero, and his friend Washington in 1779--presented
by the Corporation of Bergen in 1824." The date here is inaccurately
given as 1779 instead of 1780. Cornelisen went on to explain that the
cane was “. . . taken from an apple tree, under which you once dined
and which once afforded you shelter from the piercing rays of noon [sic]
day; . . . .” (Quoted in HMR III-20) It also clearly cites the location
of the apple tree as “. . . at the parsonage at Bergen under which
General Washington, General La Fayette and suite [sic] dined . . . .”
(Quoted in HMR III-20). Reference to the Van Wagenen property is noticeably
absent.

The HMR preservation
plan refers to two secondary accounts of the Washington-Lafayette meeting
in 1780. One is by M. Jules Cloquet in 1836 who claims they met at a breakfast
but does not give the location. The other is by Benjamin Taylor, who wrote
"Annals of the Classis of Bergen, of the Reformed Dutch Church and
the Churches under Its Care” (1857). He provides the location of
the apple tree to be “. . . in the orchard of the parsonage premises
under whose shade he [Lafayette] had with other officers of the American
army, dined . . . .” (Quoted in HMR III-21).

If such accounts
refer to the parsonage location, how did the Van Wagenen estate enter
the account leading to the long-standing legend? It seems to have started
with writing of The History of Hudson County by Charles Winfield
in 1874. He relied on The Newark Sentinel as his source and misstated
the location of the Old Bergen parsonage in 1780.

By 1874,
the year of Winfield's publication, a new parsonage at the northwest corner
of Academy Street and Bergen Avenue (now a supermarket) was constructed.
According to John Gomez of the Jersey City Landmarks Conservancy, "Winfield,
who seemed to confuse the newer parsonage with the older one, resolved
that the meal occurred behind the parsonage on the adjacent apple tree-lined
Van Wagenen property" (Jersey Journal 1 June 2005). There
was a cider press on the Van Wagenen homestead but not necessarily an
orchard. Whether they dined alone or with other military officers as Taylor
insinuates, i.e. General Nathaniel Greene and Major Henry "Light
Horse Harry" Lee, has been questioned, but never proven.

At the time
of Winfield’s writing of his work, Hartman Van Wagenen occupied
the homestead as well as Lot 103 in the village of Bergen. It was known
as "The Orchard" and opposite the parsonage in 1780 (HMR III-21).
Local writer Harriet Phillips Eaton also kept the legend alive in her
work Jersey City and Its Historic Sites (1899). She misinterpreted Benjamin
Taylor about Lafayette using the house as his headquarters and the preparation
of the legendary meal at the Van Wagenen property.

These and
other accounts about the Van Wagenen property have found their way into
many histories about the Revolutionary War and New Jersey. Without question,
the legend has provided the added benefit of sustained interest in the
property and its preservation for further study. The current archeological
study of the site and restoration project may provide new information
about the property and insight into the Dutch settlement of Bergen.